I spent four years as Forbes' Girl Friday, which to me meant doing a little bit of everything at once. As a member of the Forbes Entrepreneurs team, I looked at booming business and startup life with a female gaze. I worked on the PowerWomen Wealth and Celebrity 100 lists, keeping my ears pricked and pen poised for current event stories--from political sex scandals to celebrity gossip to international affairs. In 2012 I helped to put two South American women on the cover of FORBES Magazine: Modern Family star Sofia Vergara (the top-earning actress on U.S. television) and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who is transforming the BRIC nation into an entrepreneurial powerhouse. Prior to Forbes I was at the Philadelphia CityPaper, where I learned more than any girl ever needs to know about the city's seedier trades. I studied digital journalism at The University of The Arts.
I left Forbes in November, 2013, to pursue other interests on the West Coast.

On a Google Hang-Out to celebrate the partnership with members of various women’s leaderships groups in the U.S., Fiorina described her passion for lending to aspiring female entrepreneurs, who she sees in the unique (if hyperbolic) position of being poised to change the world for good.

“I have witnessed in my life and in the companies I’ve been privileged to work with, through all of my travels the difference that one woman can make,” she says. It was this insight that led her to found the One Woman Initiative in 2008 in conjunction with USAID and the U.S. State Department to find and fund grassroots women’s organizations around the globe to bring access to capital, skill and leadership training to women struggling in poverty.

This month the two organizations have teamed up with Fiorina taking on the formal role of Global Ambassador to Opportunity International.

“The data is clear,” Fiorina says. “If you give a woman an opportunity she will make a huge difference.” Because unlike men in the developing world, she says, “women invest in their families and their communities.” More than their male counterparts, women have proven to be great credit risks for lenders. Of the more than $515 million in its loan portfolio Vicki Escarra, Opportunity International’s CEO, says the repayment rate is at a healthy 98%.

“Both Carly and I believe in the power of women uniting around their shared commitment and experience. Together, we hope to engage women in the United States to serve as passionate advocates to address the needs and expand the choices of women in developing countries,” said Escarra in a statement today.

Much has been written about microlending, particularly for women, but some skepticism remains as to whether it’s truly the answer to poverty. Is it better to give 15 women enough money to buy a sewing machine, causing them to compete against each other for work or to finance one woman’s dream of opening a factory that would employ twice as many? Which better raises a community out of poverty?

For Fiorina, Escarra and Opportunity International the focus seems more on empowerment through entrepreneurship than on the numbers. Fiorina sees microlending as an opportunity for women to better their standing in their communities, their families and even to escape physical abuse. “Women every day are subjugated, tortured and denied access to opportunity,” she says. “It’s not simply wrong but it’s economically self-defeating.”

Much of the power of giving money to women to develop a business, at least in Opportunity International’s model, comes from the groups the org develops in communities where they lend. “In order to get a loan you have to belong to a trust group,” Escarra says, describing the 8-10 women who control how each loan gets spent in a community. If a member’s husband steals her earnings and she can’t repay the loan (something that she describes as disturbingly commonplace), that husband has the group to answer to. More often than not, she says, that group can compel him to repay the debt.

“There’s power in one woman,” says Fiorina. “There’s power in women in numbers.” Escarra answers.

Another concern that’s frequently raised in conversations surrounding microloans is training. A woman might secure a loan to buy a cow but if she’s never been a farmer, will she truly be empowered? Opportunity International aims to head off trouble (and defaulted loans) and ensures each loan beneficiary completes a 16-week training program on running their own business, as well as pairing entrepreneurs with community experts in their industry. The “all-in” training program for aspiring entrepreneurs is funded for Opportunity International by Credit Suisse.

From where I stand microlending seems well intentioned. When you read case studies on individual women whose lives have been changed with $150, you can’t help but be inspired. But measurements of true success of these programs still seems to be too far off to come to a real conclusion on their efficacy. As women who’ve committed years of their lives to championing these programs, Fiorina and Escarra concede that it’s difficult to provide metrics that measure long-term success, but feel hopeful it’s on the horizon.

Together they look to new measures of community success, from the number of children enrolled in schools to jobs creation to clean water and housing. “We’re looking for metrics that measure how giving capital to women gives them a chance at making a difference in their communities,” Escarra says. “Impact measurement is not something that happens over night. But we’re beginning to track it… And we’re getting there.”

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